JAPAN BY BULLET TRAIN.
A JOURNEY THROUGH ART.

Shinkansen is Japan’s high-speed railway, often called the bullet train. The first line opened in 1964 between Tokyo and Osaka. These are electric trains running on rails, not flying vehicles.

Streamlined shapes help trains move through air. Railway engineering brings together electricity, track design and control systems. Our journey follows the Tokaido and Sanyo lines from Tokyo to Hakata, a station in Fukuoka.

Ukiyo-e means “pictures of the floating world”. It is Japanese art that flourished from the 1600s to the 1800s, especially during the Edo period. Edo is the former name of Tokyo.

Artists pictured actors, everyday life and famous places. Many works were woodblock prints: a designer drew the picture, a carver cut wooden blocks, and a printer pressed colours onto paper. A separate block could print each colour.

Choose your boarding and arrival stations. Move along the route to see an old artwork connected to each place and a photograph of the area.

Compare the two: what has changed, and what remains? The prints show historic places, not modern stations. Some links are regional; each caption explains the connection. Where a verified print is still missing, a labelled photograph fills the window.